


General Education

by HBossWrites



Series: Surviving Project Freelancer [5]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Awkward Sex Talk, Educational Gaps, Felix is a dick, Gen, Grif takes Care of Bitters, Life on Chorus, Takes Place Between Season 11-12, The Soldiers are Hella Young
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 01:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HBossWrites/pseuds/HBossWrites
Summary: Grif is just trying to take a nap when he is confronted with a situation he doesn't know what to do with.“Hey, Fuckface,get up. I need to ask you something. It’s important and I need you to not make fun of me. I need you to not be an asshole for five fucking minutes, because there is literally no one else, and I don’t know what to do. I wouldn’t be here if I had other options.”“Dude, I reserve the right to make fun of you. What’s up?”“I think I’m bad at sex.”





	General Education

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the 'Escaping Project Freelancer' universe, but all you need to know is that the Chorus soldiers are far too young to be serving in the military and don't have nearly the life experience they need.

Grif glanced up and down the hall, to make sure he wasn’t followed, and ducked into the disused storeroom he’d scouted out for the past two weeks. So far, no one had so much as bothered the space in all the time the small selection of Reds and Blues had been in the rebel base.

It wasn’t a big space, but Grif didn’t need it to be. For naps, he was willing to cram himself into any available space, provided he wouldn’t be randomly woken up by exploding shit or bullets. Grif was so…so fucking grateful for nap time.

Like seriously? SOOOOOO grateful.

He didn’t know what crawled up Simmons ass and died there today, but he was so fucking tired of it. The other man was all ‘Time for training, Grif!’ and ‘God, you’re a pig! You eat too much!’ and ‘Do you ever even shower?!’ and it was just too much for one guy to take. Like, not everyone can be a Mr. ‘I eat a very regulated vegan diet and shower three times a day because I’m a germaphobe’, Simmons.

Really, he’d earned this nap.

Grif curled into a ball under the emergency nap blanket he’d smuggled in the day before and sighed in relief.

Naps were just the best. Right behind snacks.

Mmm, snack cakes.

“Hey, Fuckface,” Grif scowled and sat up. Bitters had somehow managed to open the door without Grif noticing and leaned against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest. “Get up. I need to ask you something.”

Seriously, what kind of asshole waits for you to get comfortable and be halfway to sleep before they woke you up? That was a dick move. That was almost a _Washington_ move.

Honestly, the fact that he put up with this little shit on his team surprised him sometimes.

Normally, Grif would flip the younger soldier off and kick him out.

Well, no, Grif wouldn’t, because Bitters never came to ask him questions. He’d track Grif down and drag him to training, he’d try to bully Grif out of the mess hall, sure, but he didn’t usually come to ask questions.

“What do you want?”

Bitters stomped into the room and closed the door behind himself with a snickt.

“It’s important and I need,” Bitters slipped his helmet off, and holy shit, he looked like hell. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, or he’d gone through one of Wash’s intensive punishment training sessions.

Seriously, he and Wash would get along once they rescued the rest of their guys…or they’d eat each other to find out who was the dominant asshole.

Bitters dropped his helmet, casual as you please, but didn’t manage to screw his face into anything so casual as his posture and voice were. The man (barely a man, more like a kid with too much to prove) could not keep his face straight for the life of him.

He was damned lucky they weren’t in a position to be walking around out of armor all the time, or no one would ever believe he was a badass maverick type he looked like when he had his full armor on.

“I need you to not make fun of me. I need you to not be an asshole for five fucking minutes, because there is _literally_ no one else, and I don’t know what to do. I wouldn’t be here if I had other options.”

Grif snorted and tossed the blanket into the corner of the room.

He tried to keep it looking as casual as he could, since it was pretty obvious that Bitters was one wrong move away from bolting like a fucking rabbit, and Grif…didn’t actually want bad shit to happen to his soldiers. Like, he didn’t really want the responsibility of these people, but he also didn’t want to actively fuck them over either.

And Bitters never asked for help.

“Dude, I reserve the right to make fun of you. What’s up?”

Bitters took the hint and flopped onto the floor next to Grif. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“I think I’m bad at sex.”

Grif snorted loudly and tried not to laugh.

He giggled under his breath.

He snorted again and pressed his fist to his mouth to try and stifle the noise.

“Oh my god.”                   

Bitters punched Grif in the shoulder, _way_ harder than necessary and growled.

“It’s not fucking funny.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just, of all the fucking things you could have come to me and talked about you, you think you’re bad at sex. What brought this on, and why the fuck do you think I can help you?”

Bitters’ face twisted up and he rolled to his feet. His voice was thick with venom and hurt.

“I, I shouldn’t have said anything to you. I _knew_ this was a fucking stupid idea.”

Well, shit.

Now Grif just felt like an asshole.

He forgot sometimes how fucking young Bitters was. The asshole was barely Kai’s age, if that, but he wore maturity like a fucking suit of armor and carried it on his shoulders like a goddamned cape. It was easy to forget that the guy’d spent so long doing war stuff, shooting guns, and running drills, that he hadn’t gotten the chance to do normal teen stuff.

Bitters never fucking asked for anything, and Grif was basically the authority when it came to anything that required more life experience than ‘grew up on a military base training to die for my planet’.

Bitters reached for his helmet.

“I knew this was going to happen and I did it to myself anyway. Fuck you.”

Grif grabbed Bitters’ arm and yanked him back to the ground. The tan and orange soldier tried to control his fall, but just ended up flailing like a loser and falling on his ass.

“Ow!”

“Dude I’m sorry it’s just kind of not what I was expecting from you. I mean, why me?”

Bitters yanked his arm out of Grif’s grip, glared, and threw up a middle finger.

“Well it’s not as if I can talk to someone my own age about this, and you and Captain Simmons aren’t exactly a secret.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the hell?”

Bitters shrugged and pulled his knees up to his chin.

“It’s not a big deal. Guys and guys that’s pretty common on Chorus. I mean, we’re not judging as long as no one’s hurting anyone. When life’s this short, you take your happiness where you can get it, right?”

Well…fuck.

Grif wasn’t about to argue against that one. I mean…yeah, he and Simmons weren’t a _thing_ , but he totally got the whole ‘grab it where you can get it’ mentality. That was basically Grif’s entire life’s motto when it came to naps and food.

“If you’re not gonna help me, I’m just gonna fuck off, since you’re being a cunt bagel about it.”

Grif waited.

He wanted to refute the accusation, but if he did, it’d just scare the kid off, and he probably needed a sex talk more than Grif needed to defend himself from being associated with Dick Simmons’ dick.

Sure, the guy _said_ he was leaving, but Bitters just stared at Grif, and when the fuck did he perfect the puppy eye shit? He was normally pretty damned terrible at that.

Grif rolled his eyes and patted Bitters’ shoulder.

“I’m sorry I made fun of you, what makes you think you’re bad at sex?”

“Kyle doesn’t get off and he is not having a good time.”

It took Grif a minute to connect the name Kyle to Matthews. Clearly, he’d been in the military too long if he couldn’t remember first names anymore.

“Uh…huh?”

“And I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve fucking tried everything to make it better.”

Grif rubbed his suddenly sweaty and vaguely uncomfortable palms on his pants.

Sex talk. Oh boy. Sex talk.

He could do this. He could…totally offer advice and not feel creepy about it. This was a totally normal thing to do for someone, right?

Who was Grif kidding? He couldn’t do this.

He wasn’t even able to get Kai through the talk before she started sleeping with random guys for food and safe places to crash after their mom left. There was no way he was going to do anything but completely fail at this.

Grif scrubbed at his eyes and huffed out a hard breath.

“Ok, Jesus, I really feel like I’m the wrong person to be talking to about this. Lets…go one step at a time. When you say you’ve tried everything?”

Bitters knocked his head against the wall.

“I mean I don’t know where to go from here. I fucking suck at sex, and it’s getting to me and I _know_ it’s messing with Kyle. We’ve tried mixing it up, We’ve tried toys and roleplaying and just, like, nothing. Nothing happens, and he just...he’s miserable the whole time. I’ve tried talking to him about it and he’s all like it’s not a big deal except it is a big deal! It’s a big deal to me. I’m pretty sure he’s just gritting his teeth through the whole thing and who the fuck wants their fucking boyfriend to just grin and bare it during sex?!”

Bitters scratched at his head, then tangled both hands in his hair and tugged.

“He’s miserable.”

Grif…really had no fucking idea what he was supposed to do with that.

“Look, I don’t like the idea of me getting off and him not. I mean that’s weird right? That’s a dick move. Sex is supposed to be fun for everyone involved and I don’t think he’s getting anything out of it. I think he’s doing it to get me to back off.”

“Has it always been like that?”

“We only just started…doing stuff. I mean, we were waiting for him to be eighteen to actually start doing dating and sex and stuff, and then he _was_ eighteen but he got really sick, and he’s been feeling really fucking badly, and then the war went even _more crazy,_ and I didn’t want us to have that movie thing where we have really rushed unsatisfying sex right before the big fight and one of us doesn’t come home, and then you guys showed up, and it’s just fucked _,_ you know? I just…I wanted it to be fun, and it’s awful and I’m just…I am so fucking bad at this and he won’t tell me what I’m doing wrong so I can’t fix it, and the porn Felix slipped me isn’t helping and I just…I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

Record scratch.

What the fuck did he just say?

“Wait, wait, wait. Stop. Felix slipped you porn? Wait, no that’s not the part I care about. When did you and Matthews start fucking?”

“Like…three weeks ago?”

“And, you didn’t have any practice before that?”

“No. Just…you know, movies and stuff.”

“Well, fuck, dude, no wonder shit’s weird! Oh my god, this I can actually help with. Stop freaking out, stop changing the game, and stop using porn to figure out what you’re doing. Stop watching porn for sex tips. It’s all fake, especially the gay shit. Most money shots are fake, and that stuff’s designed to be all fantasies and crap. Stop pulling weird sex shit out.”

Bitters blinked.

“What?”

And suddenly, it clicked.

“Dude, you’re both, fucking, _virgins_. He may not even know what he needs to get off, since his body’s all fucked up from being sick half the time, and especially if you’ve both been learning from porn. You’re not bad at sex, and he’s not broken, you’re both just really fucking inexperienced. If you’re fucking him, you may not be prepping enough, and he’s gritting his teeth because it hurts, and that’s what some gay guy pornos do. Either that or he’s scared he’s gonna scare you off by saying something, since you’re the fucking king of overreactions. Prep him more. Seriously. Prep.”

Bitters flinched a little and looked around the room. He clearly didn’t want to have this conversation any more than Grif did, but holy shit, if he was gonna do this, he was gonna at least try to do it right and make sure Bitters didn’t end up killing his boyfriend with bad anal sex.

“Do you think I’m hurting him?”

“I don’t know, because I’m not there, and I don’t want to be, but it sounds like you’re trying to do too much too fast. Dude, try plain old vanilla sex before you start throwing the kinky shit at each other. Focus on, like, kissing and foreplay. You want him to get into it later? Lots and lots of foreplay. It’s not all about getting your dick wet. Cumming can’t be your endgame all the time, or it’s not gonna be as satisfying.”

Bitters honestly looked relieved, which was a weird as fuck, but at least Grif didn’t fuck up too badly. If the guy didn’t look like he wanted to punch Grif or cry, he couldn’t have done too bad a job.

“So, you don’t think I broke him?”

“No, I think you’re both goddamned virgins and it’s a miracle you’ve even figured out this much. Please tell me you’re using condoms and shit.”

“Yeah?”

“And you’re using them right?”

“There’s…a wrong way to use condoms?”

Grif put his head back in his hands and sighed.

“How is it you motherfuckers have _three_ different classes dedicated to Harry fucking Potter shit, but not a single sex ed course?”

“Only one of them is a class, the other two are just clubs. We…dude, do you know how many of us actually had any kind of traditional education?”

 

* * *

 

Felix was leaned against the wall by Kimball’s favorite conference room, knife in hand, cleaning the dirt out from under his fingernails. He looked bored, and full of himself, as usual.

“Where’s Kimball?”

Felix cocked his head to the side.

“Vanessa? She’s being all boss lady in the conference room, trying to figure out rations for the rest of the month. I’m about to bust her out for some fun.”

“Give me like fifteen minutes first.”

“Grif, she’s been going in there for ten hours at this point, I don’t think she’s eaten since the day before yesterday.”

Grif crossed his arms and glared as hard as he could. He wanted Felix to feel the _heat_ of it through both of their helmets.

“So, bring her a fucking snack or something. Seriously, it’s not that hard. Also, stop giving the soldiers your weirdo porn.”

Felix laughed.

“Aww, but it’s hilarious to see them scramble and try to figure that shit out.”

He could feel his whole jaw clench. What kind of asshole deliberately fucks up teenagers with bad sex advice?

Felix apparently.

“They don’t need to be scrambling, they’re like twelve. Stop it, or I’m gonna get Caboose to start putting mustard in your sheets like he does to Tucker when he’s pissed and pretends it’s just a mistake.”

Felix kicked off the wall and put his knife away.

“Whatever.”

Grif watched him walk away.

There was something about that guy that just pissed Grif the fuck off. Maybe it was the way he was always amped up to eleven on the ‘I’m so charming’ meter, and how everyone loved him like he was the second coming.

Felix looked over his shoulder, waved, and swayed his hips until he went around the corner.

Creep.

Grif pulled the door open.

“HEY!”

Kimball groaned and let her head fall to her desk. She was surrounded by papers, and had four different holoscreens up showing all kinds of statistics and graphs and codes and shit that Grif wasn’t even going to pretend he understood.

“Hey! We've got a problem!”

“What do you want, Grif?”

“We’ve got a fucking emergency, is what!”

She put her arms over her head and groaned again, low and unhappy.

“Dear god, if this is about you wanting more food rations, I am going to stick you on dish duty for a month. There is _no more_ food, Grif. Not until Felix can work his magic and find us something we can work with.”

And maybe that was why everyone put up with so much of his shit. Hard to tell off the guy making sure you had food to eat and bullets to fire.

“Kimball, I’m serious, here. I have had six separate soldiers come and ask me for sex advice in the last two days.”

Kimball’s head shot up and she made a garbled choking noise.

“Uh, uhm...”

“Kimball, I am _not_ trained to be answering questions like this! I had to explain to a fifteen-year-old girl today that the g-spot and the prostate aren’t the same thing, and her boyfriend won’t die of blue balls. What the fuck?!”

She swore and scrubbed at her face.

“Clearly I missed this when we started trying to rebuild up the classroom curriculum. Why are they asking you?”

Grif threw his hands up and flopped into a chair.

“I don’t fucking know, but they won’t stop asking me things! How do I make them stop?!”

“We start offering actual classes. Maybe a Q&A session. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, do you want to start with text books or straight up questions?”

“Wait, what?”

Kimball pulled up another holoscreen and started to poke at it, and Grif had not been this confused since…well, since the last time he’d been alone with Donut and the man started talking about some musical he was writing.

“We’ll put together some educational material before we actually have classes. It also couldn’t hurt to get a little bit of a refresher under your belt, since you’re going to be teaching it.”

“Are…what? Why am I doing this?!”

“Because if I let Tucker help, the only other person who’s schedule is even marginally clear enough to take this on, he’ll dispense terrible and unsafe sex advice because the man’s only experience with sex is pornography and aliens. Do you really want Lavernuis ‘Bow Chika Wow Wow’ Tucker explaining sex and reproduction to the soldiers?”

She shook her head at the screen and poked at it even more viciously.

“Wow, no wonder you’re getting questions, all of our health textbooks regarding reproduction and sexuality were censored under the last general. Like…to the point where sex doesn’t even get a mention. Hell, how did I not catch this? What were they thinking?”

“Ok, but why me?! Why am I being targeted here?!”

Kimball waved her hand absently as she glared at the screen.

“I’m guessing because you’re open about having a younger sister. They’re probably feeling that ‘older sibling’ vibe and that makes you safe enough to ask without being embarrassing, and you’re older but not old, so it feels less like the blind leading the blind. No one would ever ask Tucker for fear of being hit on, and Caboose is sweet, but would likely get confused quickly when the questions and slang started flying. I wouldn’t ask Simmons because even though you two are together he still acts like he’s never so much as touched another person before.”

And there was that again. Did they really give off that vibe enough that _Kimball_ thought something was happening?

“Simmons and I aren’t together.”

Kimball stopped. She looked up at Grif with concern. Her voice was filled with sadness.

“What? What happened?!”

“Nothing happened! We were never together! Get back to the part where I’m the best choice to be teaching people about sex! What is that a thing?! Even Felix would be a better choice than me, wouldn’t he?”

Except, Grif thought about him laughing at Bitters and Matthews getting screwed up. Maybe he wasn’t such a good choice for actually taking care of people.

Kimball shook her head.

“Aside from the fact I don’t think there’s enough goods on Chorus to convince him to do that, you’re definitely the least threatening option. He…he’s a good guy, but I feel like it would be…a lot less comfortable if he was doing it. Felix can be…kind of intense, and he’s not so kid friendly sometimes.”

“Oh my god,” Grif had a horrified realization, “I’m the safe non threatening one in our group? I feel like I need to start blowing things up. When did this happen? _How_ did this happen?”

“How should I know?”

“No but seriously how did I end up as the one everyone thinks its safe to talk about sex with!”

Kimball put her head in her hands and rubbed her temples.

“Grif look at the people you’re surrounded with. Out of all of them, who would you ask the question of ‘how to apply a condom’ to?”

“Oh god.”

“Yeah. You see my point right?”

Grif stood up and started to pace.

This could not be happening. This was not ok. How? How in the _hell_ were things so desperate that _Grif_ was the best option to teach a high school age class on safe sex?! Had the universe gone mad?!

“How am I the responsible one? This is not ok, I am not comfortable with this!”

“Well you’re going to have to get comfortable because this is your life now. What do you think? Is two weeks enough time for you to do a refresher or do you need more time?”

“Kimball, I never even passed my own sex ed class in high school! I dropped out so I could take care of Sister!”

She shrugged and handed Grif a data chip for his tablet.

“Ok, lets say two weeks. Here’s what I have at the moment, but I’ll keep unrestricting the data and you can give me a lesson plan next week. I’ll clear my schedule for six days from now, we’ll make it a dinner meeting, and I will personally cook us steaks.”

Grif paused.

“Good steaks?”

She grinned and leaned in. Her eyes were hooded and Grif could swear she’d started to glow under the lights of the holoscreens.

“I’ll go hunting, make sure we’ve got something worth eating. You put in the work, and make the lesson plan worth my time? I’ll make you two steaks, and you won’t have to share them with anyone.”

Grif snatched the data chip out of Kimball’s hand.

“Done.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've started to put together a series of short stories and ideas that take place in my Escaping Project Freelancer storyline, but do not fit in the narrative. These will not be essential for understanding Finding Washington, but they'll hopefully help flesh out the world and allow me to get headcannons out of my head so I can focus on other stories.


End file.
